


pins and needles

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: (if you squint), Flu shot, M/M, Needles, Protective Dan, Reality, anxious Phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 16:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14060727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Phil doesn't enjoy getting his flu jab.





	pins and needles

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by Phil's liveshow. trigger warning for mentions of blood and descriptions of needles. thank you to a lovely person on tumblr who offered to beta read this for me.

Pharmacies are too white.

The walls and tiles and metal shelves, all gleaming in the afternoon sun. There’s endless rows of pill bottles and supplements, a section full of crisps and another of chocolate. They’re too tall and Phil can’t see around the room, spare for where a woman in a lab coat talks to a stranger at a counter. He can see the mull of people walking around outside the pharmacy’s large windows.

Dan is still, staring at his phone.

Phil is swaying, vibrating, bouncing. Watching strangers and the door where the doctor calls them in, staring too intently at the number in his hand.

Thirty-seven. Dan is number thirty-six. 

The doctor pops out from behind a closed door and calls in number thirty-four.

Phil bounces on his toes. He’s tempted to buy a bag of crisps, give himself something to occupy his hands rather than just the laminated number. Dan puts his phone back in his pocket, nudges Phil’s elbow with his.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he says. “It’s just a flu jab.”

Phil swallows. Part of him wants to reach out and take Dan’s hand, feel the warmth of their palms pressed together, the tightness of Dan’s grip in his. But there’s a woman and her son sitting just a few feet away, and a man in a suit sitting in the seat nearest Dan.

They don’t hold hands when other people could see. 

So Phil just nudges their elbows together.

\---

Dan gets called in first.

Phil’s sitting down, staring at a pamphlet about pregnancy that sits on the end table next to him. The woman’s son is crying and the suited man is mumbling into his phone and a teenage girl with a backpack has arrived. The door is closed tightly, and Phil wonders how Dan’s doing.

He closes his eyes and pictures it.

In his imagination, the needle is too big and the doctor is rude and the injection is a bloody shade of red and Phil’s head is spinning.

He thinks of the horror stories about fainting he used to hear. About Martyn with carpet burn on his face. About how he probably should have had something to eat before slipping out the door. 

Dan’s been gone too long for a flu jab.

Phil tries not to imagine how bad it could be.

Dan isn’t allergic to the flu jab, is he?

He blinks. The little boy has calmed down. The teenage girl has taken out her phone. The suited man is staring aimlessly into space. 

The door is still closed.

Phil reaches over and picks up a pamphlet about pregnancy, pretends to read it.

\---

Dan laughs when he comes out. He’s still pulling the sleeve of his jumper over his arm, where a plaster covers where the injection was done. Phil smiles up at him, even though his knee is bouncing and his stomach is twisting and he can feel the tension in shoulders.

“How was it?” he asks.

Dan sits down. “It was fine, Philly.”

He has that high pitched voice he gets when he’s teasing. When he knows Phil needs to think about something besides the catastrophic swirl of thoughts in his mind.

“I barely felt it.”

Phil nods. His tongue still feels too heavy in his mouth.

Dan reaches over, smooths a hand over Phil’s knee, squeezes, and then plucks the pamphlet from between Dan’s fingers. His giggles are high and happy and the kind that makes Phil smile, too.

“Really?” says Dan. “Your mpreg thing is going too far.”

Phil chokes on his laugh.

\---

The doctor calls him in.

It’s with a kind polite smile and friendly voice and yet Phil is still wobbly on his feet when he stands. Still picturing too big needles and bloody red liquid and a violent collection of images from the horror movies he watches. Dan gives him a thumbs up like he’s a little kid.

He’s thirty-one, but it still makes him smile.

The doctor is friendly. He goes through his list of safety questions with a sort of detached disinterest that has Phil sinking more heavily into his seat. His lab coat is crisp and white, and there’s a stethoscope around his neck, and a hint of scruff growing at his jaw line.

He’s kind of cute. In a ‘more Dan’s type than Phil’s’ sort of way.

“You ready?” 

Phil blinks. The doctor’s set down his pen and picked up the syringe, torn it from its plastic casing. The needle isn’t as big as in his imagination, but it’s enough to have Phil’s heart lurching.

He nods.

“Do you wanna watch?”

He stares at the needle for a moment longer, imagines the sight of it piercing his skin, feels the phantom burst of pain in his bicep.

“Uh, no, I’d rather not.”

The doctor chuckles. “Understandable. I will need you to lift off your sleeve, though.”

\---

The doctor gives him the flu jab.

Phil hears himself shout “Ow!” before he’s even aware of the pain.

\---

Dan’s laughing when he comes out of the room.

It’s the bitter kind of laugh that, to anyone else, might seem like a teasing friend. But Phil can see the tinge of worry in his eyes, notices how Dan’s gaze lingers too long on his left arm. He’s still holding the stupid pregnancy pamphlet in his hands. 

“You okay?”

Phil scowls. He’s pulled his jacket back on now, is smoothing a palm over the spot where a heavy ache lingers.

“You lied to me.”

It’s more of a whine than the angry hiss he intended it to be. A pitiful little thing that has the little boy giggling. He’s frowning and can feel the petulant burn of tears behind his eyes and his arm feels too heavy for his body.

“I didn’t!” says Dan. “Mine didn’t hurt.”

He’s standing then. They can leave the too-bright walls of the pharmacy. He pulls on his jacket and shoves the pamphlet into his pocket as though it won’t land in the rubbish as soon as they get home. Phil doesn’t protest again, not when Dan grabs his non-noodle arm and leads him back onto the London streets.

“Are you okay?” he asks again, once they’re outside and the London wind can carry their voices away. “Because I can go get mad at that doctor if-”

“I’m fine.”

He says it because he knows Dan would go get mad at the doctor, would complain about something so small. Because he knows Phil won’t stand up for himself and Dan wouldn’t, either, but he’s far too good at standing up for Phil.

“Just hurts,” he mumbles.

His brain feels heavy too, and his palm is still flat against his arm, and his chest is tight with the childish desire to go home and wallow about a painful flu jab. Dan’s staring down at him now, all soft smiles and stupidly worried eyes with a lingering hint of laughter crinkling at the corners.

“Do you wanna stop and get sweets before we go home?” he asks.

Phil really is thirty-one, but he smiles and hums and nods and follows Dan into the nearest shop.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr @huphilpuffs


End file.
